Photos

If you’re like any smart candidate, you want to make an impact with voters in your district. That’s why you spend hours, days, weeks and months knocking on doors and meeting voters face to face. The “political science” behind doorknocking (proven by fact) is that if voters get to see and know you, they’ll be more inclined to vote for you, even if they don’t share your party preference or views on all the issues.

No candidate begins their day of doorknocking without getting ready. In addition to having your walk lists, literature and water this means dressing to fit your district, being properly groomed, in other words, looking the part.

That’s the same approach you should take with direct mail. You need to “look” the part and that comes with good photos. The old adage, “a picture speaks a thousand words” is absolutely true, especially in political direct mail. Any direct mail firm can take your head shot and surround it with boatloads of heavy copy and call it a day. And that’s what most campaigns do. Sure, you get a piece of mail in the hands of the voters, but it doesn’t’ really tell a story, speak to voters or show the real you.

“But I’ve got a volunteer with an expensive digital camera and she’s taken a ton of photos,” you say. O.K. Let’s sit down and go through the photos to see if the photos are close enough, have high enough resolution to use in direct mail applications, show at least two-thirds of your face and really communicate who you are. (My favorite are the parade shots where the volunteer photographer is 50 feet ahead of you and takes tons of shots where all we can see way off in the distance is the side of your face, completely void of any emotion or expression.)

Getting good photos isn’t easy. It takes time and money. But if you want direct mail that wins hearts, minds and votes, you need good photography. Yes, good photography costs money, (expect to pay $400-$600 for a 3 hour photo shoot) but it’s money well spent. Good photography turns boring into compelling, dull into eye-catching, and “throw it away” into “take another look.”

If you want more information on photography, direct mail or are looking for other ideas that influence, contact P2B Strategies today.

Here’s another article by Politics Magazine highlighting the importance of photography in political mail:

Photography can be the key to a successful direct mail campaign
by Liz Chadderdon

When it comes to direct mail, you get approximately five seconds of a voter’s time between the mailbox and the trash can so you need to make those five seconds as eye catching and powerful as possible. In a misguided attempt to save resources, many campaigns skimp on one of the most crucial aspects of direct mail—photography. It’s akin to building your dream house on a dirt foundation. All of the work you put into your mail program—the research, writing and strategy—won’t be as effective if the piece is dragged down by low resolution, amateurish, overtly political photos taken by a well-meaning volunteer.

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in political mail. A compelling and unusual photo can leap out of the rest of the clutter in the mailbox and get you those precious seconds of voter attention. A few tips on getting the right image to make your point:

Hire a professional photographer, not your neighbor who has a new digital camera (unless he or she is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer in which case I hope they have better equipment). Spend the money on a real shoot with a real photographer. Your mail will cost thousands of dollars, and its success depends on the art so just do it.

Remember that campaigns are not about candidates, they’re about voters. So don’t put the candidate on the front of a mail piece unless it’s a unique or unusual photo (see point 4). The front of a mail piece needs to be something the voter can relate to and a political candidate isn’t relatable for them. But photos of regular folks doing regular things, such as playing in the yard or at a park with parents looking on, make sense to voters.

Candid photos are always better than posed photos. Posed photos look posed—i.e. stiff, unnatural and, most importantly, not relatable. Some posed shots are fine but the majority of shots should look as if they are capturing a moment in the candidate’s life or the voter’s life. Please, do not allow the candidate’s family to wear matching outfits for the family shot. How in the world is that normal?

Get out the old photo albums and find fun childhood photos. I’m a fan of old photos such as a candidate as a kid dressed in a cowboy outfit, riding a stick horse. What better way to convey a message of “fighting crime” or “from an early age (candidate) was committed to protecting our community.” It’s funny, interesting, unique and, again, relatable. It makes the candidate seem more human. Humanizing the candidate is key. Unfortunately, most voters don’t think candidates are normal people. The images a candidate uses in their communication need to make a candidate look as “normal” as possible.

A good case study is Joel Burns who ran for the city council in Fort Worth, Texas. Joel is openly gay in a city that had never elected an openly gay candidate. His campaign communication needed an even greater emphasis on showing him as relatable with the same values, concerns and needs as his neighbors and community. Our first piece had a photo of Joel at the age of 12 with his mother and father and younger sister. Not only is it a typical 1970’s family photo, the same kind we all endured, but Joel’s Dad, Butch, is wearing a cowboy hat. As a native Texan, I can tell you nothing says “normal” in Texas like a man named Butch in a cowboy hat. And by using that photo, we portrayed Joel as someone “just like the rest of us” instead of a typical politician or the “gay” candidate who is not to be trusted.

A good example of a photo doing “your dirty work” for you is the piece “black eye” produced for the Re-elect Delegate Chuck Caputo (Va.) campaign. This piece focused on domestic violence.

It needed an image that was powerful and relatable without being too extreme. It would have been easy to pick a harsher photo to really drive the point home, but then you run the risk of turning voters off, especially women. We needed a photo that was genuine. We are proud to have won the 2009 Reed Award for Toughest Direct Mail Piece with the image we chose.

The lesson here is don’t skimp on the art. Often times, a piece of direct mail may be the only time a candidate “enters” someone’s home. So it needs to show a candidate as someone they may want to invite in. This begins and ends with well-planned, creative photography.

Liz Chadderdon is the president of The Chadderdon Group, a Democratic direct mail firm based in Virginia.

When it comes to taking photos of a candidate at parades, the photographer must be part of the crowd. What does this mean?

A good campaign photo including parades should show at least two-thirds of the candidate’s face. If the photographer is in the street with the candidate, then this is difficult to accomplish and usually results in the “back of the head” photo. The photographer should situate themselves behind the crowd. This requires your photographer to weave through the crowd to get the right perspective for a photo. This also eliminates any potential problems with the people in the photo the candidate is greeting. Some people may not want their face in a campaign photo.

Here are a couple sample parade photos your photographer should try to replicate:

Whether you use our photography services or a local volunteer, your photographer must be part of the crowd. And don’t forget, it takes tens if not hundreds of photos to get a few quality parade photos.